Scrape Away
by Go-Go Spiders
Summary: Link's trying to get over his crush on Susan. Katie's looking to find a new boyfriend in time for senior prom after dumping wussy gymnast Cuthbert. Link/Katie and Dr. C/Susan
1. Part 1 : Music For The Last Couple

Scrape Away

by Go-Go Spiders

Rating: PG

Pairings: Missing Link/Katie and Dr. C/Susan (If you don't remember: Katie and Cuthbert were the teenagers in the car when the clone robot probe thingie lands on Earth.)

PART ONE : Music For The Last Couple

***

Doctor Cockroach had never been so bored in his entire life.

True, he should have been honored. It wasn't every day the President of the United States invited you to a gala dinner at Consitution Gardens in Washington, D.C. held in your honor for saving the world. And he did feel honored. The outpouring of support and immense gratitude from everyone who'd spoken to him and the other monsters tonight could be overwhelming at times. It was a nice feeling, to actually be seen as useful to society instead of freaks that had to be locked away.

Which is exactly what made all these speeches so incredibly redundant and dull. It did amaze him how the politicians in nearly-identical suits giving nearly-identical speeches could talk for so long and say so little during that time.

"And I'm sure I speak for everyone in the whole world when I say that it's a good thing the entire human race wasn't enslaved, huh? Huh?" The Attorney General of Washington, D.C. crowed into the microphone on a small podium. The crowd was utterly silent.

It also amazed him whenever they tried to use humor to liven up their speeches. It never worked, not once.

Seated next to him, B.O.B was fast asleep. On his other side, the Missing Link rolled his eyes and sighed, his patience wearing thin. Susan and Insectosaurus, the reason the dinner was being held outside in Constitution Gardens instead of the White House, sat behind the smaller monsters. Each of the monsters, with the exception of Insecto, were dressed in varying degrees of formalwear. B.O.B and Link could get away with wearing just black bow ties. Dr. Cockroach was dressed in an old suit of his that he'd dug out of a government warehouse only hours ago– a slate grey tweed jacket, black pants, white dress shirt and tie. Susan had somehow found a team of seamstresses willing to create a gown for this event that would fit her enormous frame. He had to admit, they'd done an excellent job. Made out of three-hundred-and-fifty-yards of black satin, the gown clung tightly to her body until it reached mid-thigh, where it flared out into a small train. The plunging neckline of the bodice was held up by two jeweled shoulder straps, one of which Susan was fingering out of boredom. Insectosauros was quiet, its eyes staring at the lights set up around the park.

Link caught Dr. Cockroach's eye and made a motion with his hand imitating the latest politician's mouth yapping away. A quiet titter ran through the rest of the crowd.

Dr. Cockroach smiled, looking down at his empty plate in an attempt to hide it. He certainly shared Link's sentiment. It might've been more bearable if the waitstaff had left the garbage he hadn't eaten on his plate, then he might've been able to concoct something interesting from it, the advantages of being able to play with your food. Silverware, a glass of red wine, a napkin and an empty china plate did not exactly lend themselves to mad science.

_'...Actually, the wine might.'_

_***_

By the end of the Attorney General's speech Dr. Cocvkroach had assembled a miniature ferris wheel from his table setting. It was not very mad-science-y but it was the most he could do with what he had on hand. For lack of anything more interesting, Link had watched Dr. Cockroach assemble the contraption in his lap, hidden from the view of other attendees by the tablecloth. Susan was watching behind him as well, slightly too far away to make out what he was doing.

"That's real cute, Doc," said Link as Dr. Cockroach set the ferris wheel on the table.

"I wish I had some teacups handy to make those little gondolas that people sit in," Dr. Cockroach said as he began absentmindedly spinning the ferris wheel. A happy high pitched tune began to play quietly from the base as the wheel rotated.

Curious, Susan bent over slightly and stared down at the miniature with a small smile. "Did you make a music box out of a fork?"

Dr. Cockroach smiled. "I had nothing better to do. "

At the podium, the Attorney General stepped down to polite applause. An almost inaudible sigh ran through the other tables when nobody came up to replace him. The dinner crowd began to dissipate almost instantly after that, in spite of the dessert carts being rolled over the manicured lawn of the National Mall.

Link smiled slyly at the young waitress that placed a plate of fish dumplings in front of him. Before she could move her hand, he placing one scaled hand over hers. "Hey Gorgeous. Doing anything afterwards?"

The waitress smiled thinly. "I'm sorry, you're not my type. Or my species."

"C'mon, I'm pretty close. Spitting distance of the ape family, at least." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"I'm sorry, sir," the waitress repeated coldly, pulling her hand free. She quickly set the other desserts for the monsters and then disappeared. Link watched her leave with a mixture of frustration and slight disappointment on his face before turning his attention to his fish dumplings.

"Link, I say this as both a man of science and your friend: when you have to pull out taxonomic rank to convince a girl to give you a chance, it's most likely a lost cause." Dr. Cockroach chuckled.

Link shot him a nasty look before crossing his arms sullenly. "It was as a lot easier when I could just, y'know, carry the pretty girls in skimpy bikinis off the beach."

"Yes, and that's why you went to prison."

"Hey, my way got results!" Link shot back. "I don't exactly see girls hanging off of you and your test tubes, Doc."

"True, the cockroach head tends to put them off. What women in general think of me doesn't bother me anymore, however. There's just one woman's opinion that matters to me." Smiling slightly, he looked up at the large table Susan was seated at, and then cupped his hands near his mouth. "Susan! Would you care to take a walk down to the Reflecting Pool?"

Susan grinned, a light blush spreading across her face. She stood, carefully pushing her chair back. "I'd love to."

Looking at the Doctor, Link raised one eyebrow.

Not meeting the fish-ape's eyes, Dr. Cockroach's smile broadened as Susan knelt down, laying her hand on the grass. He quickly skittered up her bare arm, perching on her shoulder.

"Do you wanna come too, Link? The Reflecting Pool's supposed to be over two-thousand feet long, and absolutely gorgeous at night!" said Susan.

"But it's not very deep though." Link waved his hand listlessly. "Go ahead. I'll stay here and keep an eye on B.O.B. Make sure no one tries to throw out his, uh, 'girlfriend'."

"You sure?" asked Susan. She looked around. Apart from the caterers cleaning up and a few stragglers, the monsters were the only ones standing in the clearing.

"Yeah, positive." Link hopped up onto the table. "'sides, Insecto'll keep me company, won't you, boy? Er, girl?" Insectosaurus roared, flapping its wings behind Link. Several of the caterers screamed in fright. "I'll meet up with you two and Monger later."

"Allright. C'mon, Doc," Susan turned towards the reflecting pool, the train of her dress rippling as she walked. As they got further away, he could faintly hear Dr. Cockroach say something to Susan. She replied with a small laugh.

He sighed, and looked down at the grass as B.O.B snored soundly, the platter of lime Jell-O next to him. Behind the table, Insectosaurus laid its head down on the ground and croaked out a small roar.

Link rolled his eyes again, his tail twitching in annoyance. "I am _not_ moping."

Another screech. The caterers seemed to be making a heroic effort in getting out of there as quickly as possible.

"Then you're wrong, all right?" Link snapped irritably. "It is possible for you to be wrong, Insecto! Like how you thought you were a boy for forty years and then -whoops!- turns out you're a girl? That's one's a real whopper, don't ya think?!"

There was a slight pause from Insecto before it responded with a sad, hurt noise that made Link feel like a complete jerk. Before he could apologize, Insecto spread its colorful wings and flew into the night sky.

"Wait, Insecto! I didn't mean...!" Link ran after it a few paces, but stopped. It was too far away to hear him.

Returning to the table, which the caterers had left in their hurry, Link paused in front of the miniature ferris wheel Dr. Cockroach had made during the dinner. He gave it a small spin, and listened to the notes that played in the empty clearing.

_Doo doo do dooooo, do-do-do-do do dooooo._

His shoulders slumped forward.

***

Across the country, in a small town just outside San Francisco, a young teenage girl stood by the telephone, her hand on the receiver. She bit her lip, then slowly picked it up and dialed a phone number.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded out-of-breath.

"It's Katie, Cuthbert."

"Katie?" There was a pause. "Oh my God, I was supposed to help you pick out a prom dress this afternoon, wasn't I?"

"Yeah," she said shortly. "You were."

"Oh my God, Katie, I'm so sorry. I'm at the gym right now. I just got caught up with some of the guys after gymnastics practice this afternoon and we just got to talking and it slipped my mind." He gave a light laugh. "You're not too mad, are you?"

Katie took a deep breath and then said quickly, "Look, Cuthbert, I'm sorry but this is not working out at all. I think we should see other people."

Cuthbert instantly broke into tears. "Y-you're ...breaking u-u-up...with...me-e-e?" he cried, his voice now several octaves higher and much more shrill.

The girl closed her eyes. "That's what 'I think we should see other people' usually means, Cuthbert."

"Katie, I'm so so sorry about this afternoon. I promise I can make it up to you!" he sniveled, his nose running. "Please, give me another chance! I can change! I promise I can change!"

"Cuthbert, don't make a scene..."

"Ka...Katie, ple...please. We...we survived an alien invasion together! That has to m...mean something to you!"

Katie let out a long breath. "You don't understand, Cuthbert. It's not just about what happened this afternoon, or the invasion, when we were in your car together and you were a total wuss. You're just...not the right guy for me in every single way I can think of. It's better this way."

Cuthbert didn't reply for several minutes, he just wailed and sniffled on the other end of the phoneline. "Katieeee. Isn't there anything I can do? Katiiieeeeee...."

"I'm sorry, Cuthbert," said Katie quietly. With that, she placed the receiver back down. She quickly bent over to unplug the phone from the phone jack, silencing it mid-ring.

Katie heaved a relieved sigh as she dropped the phone cord to the carpet. "He took that pretty well," she grinned happily, then turned and went upstairs to get started on her homework.

END PART ONE

Notes: This is primarily a set up for the next part, where Link and Katie actually meet. XD There will be more Dr. C/Susan too, but it's not the focal pairing. Don't worry, they'll still be in here too.

The tune that Dr. C's musical ferris wheel plays is 'Laura's Theme' from the movie _Doctor Zhivago._ It's very pretty.

Special thanks goes to to KooKooXachoo, for giving me the idea of pairing Link up with Katie.

Both the story title and the chapter title are from the Jam's 'Sound Affects' album. It's awesome. Go listen to it.

See you next time!

G-GS


	2. Part 2 : The Vanishing Girl

Scrape Away

by Go-Go Spiders

Rating: PG

Pairings: Missing Link/Katie and Dr. C/Susan

PART TWO : The Vanishing Girl

***

The trip back home was a living nightmare.

Dr. Cockroach and Susan spent most of the flight in Monger's carrier seated talking to each other. Susan would sometimes delicately play with one of Dr. Cockroach's antenna between her fingers, which he appeared to enjoy.

Link had spent most of the flight lying on the floor with his back turned to them, facing a wall and trying to ignore the other monsters. It really wasn't working. His scales felt oddly dry and tight, even though he'd been out of the water for much longer periods of time. His eyes felt dry as well, although unlike his scales they burned as well.

"You feeling all right?" Susan had asked him at one point, after trying to strike up a conversation with Link and only receiving curt one-word answers.

"I'm tired," Link had mumbled. She had left him alone after that, although later Link had heard her ask Dr. Cockroach softly if he knew why Link was acting depressed.

"A waitress at the dinner spurned his advances," Dr. Cockroach had replied quietly. "He was quite upset about it. You know how he is. His ego's as fragile as an eggshell."

That had stung.

B.O.B. had been tucked into a corner with the plate of lime Jell-O. About halfway to the base the plane had hit some rough turbulence, causing the Jell-O to quiver violently. After they'd passed the turbulence, B.O.B was in tears, convinced that the Jell-O didn't love him anymore and was about to break up with him.

"I don't know what I'd do without her!" B.O.B had sobbed loudly. "She's the love of my life! My soul-mate! We were practically made for each other!"

Dr. Cockroach and Susan spent the rest of the flight trying to calm him down again while Link rolled his eyes. Right before they landed, B.O.B. and the lime Jell-O had a very serious talk about their relationship and announced that it'd just been a small misunderstanding after all.

Between Dr. Cockroach and Susan flirting and B.O.B making kissy faces at the Jell-O, Link wanted to scream. Once the plane landed in Area 52 he fairly sprinted down the ramp and onto the tarmac. On all fours, he ran past a waiting Insecto, who bleated out something he didn't quite catch as Link sped towards the sand dunes of the small beach nearby.

Even though they had been set free by the government, the monsters had made the descion to stay at the base. There wasn't really anyplace else for a 350-foot tall butterfly, a 50-foot women, a fish-ape, a mad scientist with a cockroach's head and a gelatinous mass of blue goo to stay. Insectosaurus and Susan both required a lot of space and Dr. Cockroach's experiments were often loud, noisy and had a tendency to spontaneously combust. The base had been built with monsters in mind, although it had been meant to keep them imprisoned. Thankfully, now they were under no restrictions from Monger and could leave the base whenever they pleased. Those two things alone went a long way towards making it feel less like a prison and more like a home.

But not his home, not his real one. The Missing Link was not a creature raised from birth inside a small enclosed tank. He was a monster of nature, and within him was the urge to swim in the ocean's currents. A tank of stagnant chemically-treated water didn't fulfill the same need.

Within five feet of the water's edge, he gracefully leapt through the the air, doing a perfect backflip before breaking the water's surface.

'_Figures. The one time I don't screw this up and nobody's around to see it._'

***

Penny, Denny, and Jenny had been Katie's friends since the third grade, despite the fact all three were total airheads. They'd been together through the sixth-grade band concert, the horrors of puberty, and an endless cycle of boyfriend-swapping. That did not stop her from wanting to wring their necks right there. At this point, the only thing restraining her was that there were about a hundred witnesses eating lunch in the high school's cafeteria.

An exasperated Katie looked up from her lukewarm macaroni and cheese to find her three friends still staring at her with looks of concern. Katie rolled her eyes. "Guys, I'm fine. Quit hovering, it's getting really annoying."

"Awww, you poor thing," cooed Jenny, sitting down in the seat across from her. "Breaking up with Cuthbert must've been awful."

Katie frowned. "...Not really." Giving Cuthbert the heave-ho had felt more therapeutic then anything else, but she wasn't about to tell them that.

"And so close to senior prom too!" continued Jenny, ignoring Katie "Where does he think you're going to find another date on such short notice, huh? It's only four days away!"

"You'd think he'd be considerate enough to break up with you _after_ prom," added Denny, chewing on a large wad of bubble gum. "Making you go stag is awfully cruel. He always seemed so nice, too."

"No, look, _I _broke up _him_--"

"I know! I know!" squealed Penny, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Let's go to the beach after school!"

"Let's not," Katie shot back.

The other three teenage girls ignored her again. "And I just got a new bathing suit too!" squeaked Jenny, clearly excited about the idea. "I bet there'll be tons of cute guys there. Ohmigod you guys, we should totally go!"

"So it's decided. We're going to the beach right after eighth period," Jenny grinned, showing off perfect teeth as just as the bell rang, ending their lunch period. Giggling and laughing, they quickly left the cafeteria, leaving a stunned Katie trying to figure out what has just happened.

Unfortunately for her but luckily for them, Denny, Jenny, and Penny had flounced off before Katie could tell them the truth she'd been holding back for nine long years; she'd rather pound nails with her head then willingly spend another minute with them then necessary. They were friends weekdays from 9 AM to 2 PM and at school functions, but that was it. They were nice enough people, but she could not handle the stupid those three radiated outside of a school setting. It simply wasn't possible.

Getting her books from her locker, Katie had the sinking feeling she'd be going along with them whether she wanted to or not. Her suspicions were confirmed two periods later when the trio literally dragged her off to Penny's parked GTO convertible after the end-of-the-day bell rang. The Three-Knees plunked her in the backseat and then crammed themselves into the front, with Jenny sitting between the driver and passenger seat.

Once they'd left the school parking lot, Jenny pulled a hot pink bikini out of her bookbag with a flourish. "Ta dah! Isn't it the absolute cutest thing _ever_?"

"Ohmigoooood!" Denny and Penny cried in unison, their voices high enough to shatter glass.

In the backseat, Katie grimaced. There was never an alien invasion around when you needed one.

***

A half-hour outside of the town, Gordon Beach was a veritable dumping ground for the nearby chemical plants, and every year or two it was closed for a month while the town board tried to decide if the schools of fish swimming in from the Pacific Ocean immediately dying upon reaching Gordon Beach was worrisome or not. Because of this, it was not a particularly pretty beach either. The skeletal trees on either side of the bank were either completely dead or just very very sick, while the water was an unhealthy shade of muddy brown with a film of something green over it. The smell of dead fish slowly rotting lingered uncomfortably heavy over the water.

Gordon Beach had always been kinda icky, but Katie couldn't remember it ever being this bad before.

The four of them were the only people on the beach. Katie was not surprised – Party Beach was only about forty-five minutes away from town in the other direction, managing to avoid the pollution that had killed everything living in and around Gordon Beach. Party Beach had gotten its nickname from its proximity to a college campus, which guaranteed finding some available young frat guys eager to impress girls. Why the Three-Knees had decided to come here was beyond her abilities to comprehend.

They had spread a blanket Penny kept in her car out on the sand dunes. Jenny stared out over the water in horror while Katie read a book. Denny and Penny, still dressed in their school clothes, were lying down on the blanket looking up at the clouds. Jenny had changed into her bikini, but the look on her face made it very clear that she wouldn't dare to venture into the surf for fear of what it would do to her brand-new bathing suit.

A tall wave of brown water crashed loudly against the shore, leaving driftwood and more dead fish in its wake.

"Ew ew ew eeeewwww," said Jenny, her face scrunched up in disgust. Katie rolled her eyes and ignored her.

Behind a very expensive pair of sunglasses, Jenny's eyes suddenly widened and she gave a loud terror-stricken scream. Before the other three girls could look up, she sped across the dunes, her feet raising little clouds of sand as she ran towards the GTO.

Denny and Penny looked at each other, then out towards the water. They shrieked as well and followed Jenny. A moment later, Katie looked towards the parking lot just in time to see Penny's car speed off in a cloud of dust, leaving four-foot-long skid marks on the asphalt.

Confused, Katie stared disbelievingly at where the convertible had been moments before. Behind her, another large wave broke against the sand. That had been...weird. What on Earth had gotten them so worked up?

Closing her book for a moment, Katie turned her head towards the water.

***

Link had focused on swimming as fast as he possibly could. He had not been paying attention to what direction he'd been going or keeping track of time. There was only him and the sparkling sea water. Hours went by without another thought entering his head. The rough motion of his tail snapping back and forth as he glided almost effortlessly through the surging water, no glass walls...

He'd missed this. He'd missed this so much.

Link was so caught up in his enjoyment he didn't noticed the slight tingling sensations beginning around his eyes, nose, mouth and gills. Gradually, the water became more and more murky until suddenly it became totally brown, like swimming in mud. It forced him to slow down almost to a lazy crawl. There was something strange about the part of the ocean, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The taste of it seemed alien, but he'd come across it before fairly recently...

The fish-ape frowned, slightly puzzled at the change in the water. Something drifted by his feet, and he quickly snatched at it with his toes before bringing it up to his eyes.

It was a dead fish. Bloated and rotten, he could barely see the gills, which were stained a dull red. The otherwise white belly of the fish was covered in brown bumps. Two more dead fish floated up, then three more, all bobbing towards the surface.

Link realized with a start that something was wrong. There were lots and lots of chemicals in this water, like the chlorine in the Murphy's pool. That didn't make sense...

Suddenly the water swelled around him, pushing him further into the muddy, chemical-ridden water. Gurgling in surprise, his gills began to violently burn as the current dragged him further in. All his scales felt like they had been scalded with boiling water. He found it difficult to breathe. Those were all very bad things.

Link quickly swam towards the surface of the water, gulping in huge lungfuls of air once he surfaced. The pain in his gills eased as soon as he was breathing oxygen again, but the part of him below the water was still having a painful reaction to the chemicals.

Land. He needed to get to land. Luckily it looked like it wasn't too far away and the tide would be carrying him to shore, which was a godsend. He still needed to get out of the water as soon as he could. He swam along with the tide until his felt his feet hit the bottom, and then lurched along on his still-burning feet.

After his near brush with death, Link's good mood had vanished. He needed a pick-me-up, and he needed it now.

Then he spotted several girls seated on a blanket several yards away from the water's edge. No one else was around. Only one girl was in a bikini, and she was the least-attractive of the group, but it was better then nothing.

_'That'll work nicely,' _Link grinned. After all he'd been through over the past few days, he deserved to indulge himself in a little bit of harmless fun, right?

Raising his arms, he charged towards the girls. The one in the bikini spotted him first and ran screaming towards the car surprisingly fast. Two other girls looked up, and followed the bikini-wearing one towards the car, leaving just one girl on the blanket. She had been reading a small book, but looked up towards the parking lot as her friends drove off. The sound of the beach's waves masked his approach, and she didn't spot him until it was too late for her to escape.

***

The monster roared directly into her face, and Katie got a very nice view of his razor-sharp teeth. With one quick movement he grabbed her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder without breaking stride.

Katie had seen enough old cheesy sci-fi movies to have a pretty good idea how most women would take suddenly being abducted by a monster – they'd either scream, pass out, or scream and then pass out. To her, that had always seemed like a stupid thing for someone to do, and it seemed just as stupid now, in the middle of an actual monster attack. Her first reaction to being carted off a beach by what appeared to be a large ape covered in fish scales wasn't one of intense fright, and she didn't lose consciousness.

No, Katie was just incredibly pissed off.

END PART TWO

Notes:

Party Beach is a reference to an old b-movie called 'The Horror of Party Beach'. Gordon Beach is not an actual place. I have been at some beaches that didn't look much better then it, though. x_x

I really felt bad writing this chapter becuase Link's still all mopey and sad. ;_; He'll be back to his old sarcastic self by the next part.

Thanks for reading, I'll try to have the next chapter up soon! :D

G-GS


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